Red Star Burning: A Thriller (Charlie Muffin Thrillers) Read online

  The Director-General shook his head. “He couldn’t do that without backup resources, which he doesn’t have.”

  “You want to run the risk of his trying, which he will, and create a huge diplomatic incident?”

  “You proposing we eliminate him?” There was no outrage in Smith’s voice.

  “I’m arguing we shouldn’t close everything down as quickly as you seem to be suggesting,” said Monsford. “I also believe it would be an argument that those who crack the whip in Downing Street would consider a validation.”

  “I don’t think…” began Smith, but was stopped by the burp of an internal telephone. He listened for several moments before interrupting, sharply: “You know what to do. Do it!”

  To Monsford’s inquiring look, Smith said: “The Russians have just broken into Charlie’s flat. And there’s been fresh contact from Moscow. It’s being voiceprinted to make sure it’s Natalia Fedova.”

  “Isn’t one thing going to complicate the other?”

  “I don’t see why it should,” said Smith. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

  He wasn’t manipulating events, despaired Monsford. And he didn’t know how to reverse the situation.

  * * *

  It was the first time they’d met, at Maxim Radtsic’s insistence, in Jacobson’s car. An enclosed vehicle was the easiest for an entrapment, so as a precaution Jacobson drove several times past the pickup point from every possible approach to satisfy himself there were no ambush preparations in the immediate side streets. There weren’t, but Jacobson, who’d never before been involved in an extraction and was even less used to having the deputy director of Russian intelligence dependent upon him, wasn’t reassured, his stomach in turmoil as, precisely on time, he made his final approach, still only minimally relieved at the sight of the Russian waiting as arranged. That relief vanished when he realized that the clumsiness with which Radtsic fumbled open the passenger door was caused by his carrying a suitcase in one hand. So instinctive was it for Jacobson to drive off that he briefly took his foot off the brake, making the car jump and almost toppling the Russian, who was only partially in, the suitcase ahead of him. It was a separate instinct for Jacobson to snatch the case farther in and haul the Russian behind it, letting the next forward lurch slam the door closed.

  “What the fuck!” exploded Jacobson, finally thrusting the suitcase away from his shoulder into the rear of the vehicle. He was only vaguely aware of the clatter of loose things, his concentration tensed for the siren scream of arrest.

  “Very much what the fuck!” returned the Russian, pushing himself upright.

  “What’s happening?… What’s in the case…?”

  Radtsic recovered first. “I’m the senior FSB deputy: you actually think I would act as bait, for your seizure!”

  Jacobson’s fear was molding into humiliation at his overreaction. “We never talked about a case … about your carrying anything.”

  “It’s not a bomb, Harry. And our listening devices are miniaturized, just like yours. The case contains all the personal things that Elana wants to take with her. But with which we’d never get past airport security.”

  Jacobson was glad the darkness would cover the redness flaming his face. “You should have warned me.”

  “Yes, I should, shouldn’t I?”

  “You frightened me,” admitted Jacobson.

  “I’m sorry.” The Russian jerked his head back toward the case. “You can ship that out in the diplomatic bag, can’t you?”

  “I suppose … yes, of course we can. Will there be anything more?”

  “I’d hoped there wouldn’t be the need for many more meetings: that you were going to tell me the final details tonight.”

  “It’s close. But not yet.”

  “Not too much longer: I can’t wait too much longer. Neither can Elana.”

  “You won’t have to,” promised Jacobson, hoping he was right.

  * * *

  “I’ve told my father,” announced Yvette Paruch. She was sitting naked at Andrei’s dressing table, until then methodically counting aloud the brushstrokes to her waist-length, deeply black hair but looking at him in the mirror’s reflection.

  “You’re exciting me, sitting like that.” Andrei Maximovich was naked, too, still sprawled across their bed.

  “I can see for myself.” Yvette smiled, into the mirror. “I said I’ve told my father I’ve moved in with you.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he hoped I was sure. And to be careful not to become pregnant until I was.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That I was but that I wouldn’t get pregnant.”

  “Did you tell him I’m Russian?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know why not.”

  “So I’m not going to meet him?”

  “He invited us down for the vacation.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  “I want him to meet the man I’m in love with.”

  “He’ll pick up my accent: know I’m not French.”

  “Are you frightened?”

  “Having survived the Nazi occupation of Warsaw but seen both his parents killed by Russian soldiers, I think he deserves to be told in advance, not when we get there.”

  “One hundred!” she declared, finishing her routine, swiveling on her stool to face him. “What about you? Are you going to tell your parents?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t choose to.”

  “Does that mean you don’t love me? That it’s just more convenient to fuck me if I live here instead of staying on in my own apartment?”

  “That’s ridiculous and dirty and you know it!”

  “Why not then! Because I’m Jewish?”

  “You’re being ridiculous: intentionally making an argument. Stop it!”

  “You know everything about me. I don’t know anything about you. Let’s not go down to Aix for the vacation. Take me to Moscow instead.”

  “I’d rather go to Aix.”

  “I’d rather go to Moscow.”

  “We’ll think about it.”

  “You’re not excited anymore,” she said, giggling.

  “No, I’m not, am I?” he agreed.

  8

  Charlie slept intermittently, aware of the infrared monitoring, and feigned sleep when he’d been awake, his concentration entirely upon how to reverse some of the impressions he’d conveyed during his original questioning in the desperate hope of gaining some personal involvement in the rescue of Natalia and Sasha. He’d stupidly confronted them, outargued the ridiculously mind-seized deputy director-general, for Christ’s sake! He could probably deceive a woman as obdurate as Jane Ambersom but realistically it wouldn’t be as easy with either Aubrey Smith or Gerald Monsford. And not just them. The recordings would be reexamined and soberly reanalyzed, every pause and nuance tested for the slightest suspicion-prompting, overeager ambiguity. Ambersom had been more than overeager. Desperate: as desperate as Natalia had increasingly sounded during the pleading calls that had been torturously played back to him.

  Charlie wished he could listen to those recordings again. The words had registered and he’d known it was Natalia’s voice and not an impersonation, but in that brief, totally startled awareness he hadn’t properly heard them. Not the intonations or hesitations or an emphasis she might have imposed for him to gauge how exposed she and Sasha were. No, he didn’t need to hear the recording, Charlie corrected himself, once more refusing the self-deception. He knew exactly how exposed Natalia and Sasha were, just as he knew the pressure under which she’d been put to make the calls. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—fail her this time. Had she failed him? Charlie frowned at the unthinking jealousy, straining for recall. Igor Karakov, he remembered: a teacher at Sasha’s school. Just as quickly as the doubt came, Charlie rejected it. A friend, Natalia had said when he’d been in Moscow the last time: only a friend. She wouldn�
��t lie.

  As he had earlier, escaping from Chelsea, Charlie fought against the impatience to get up earlier than usual, to be ready. If Smith or Monsford didn’t isolate his eagerness, the visually watching, voiceprinting analysts might. He actually remained in bed longer than normal but, as he had for the Jersey expedition, caught up during his showering and shaving, noting the outside rain.

  “You got umbrellas?” he asked the guard, when his breakfast rolls and coffee arrived: if the debriefing was to be before noon, there wouldn’t be morning exercise.

  Predictably there was no response. Charlie ate half a roll he didn’t want and crumbled the remainder to disguise how much he’d left and took his customary second cup of coffee, which that morning he didn’t want either. He didn’t try to read beyond the headlines of The Times that had come with his food, but did it twice to prevent the cursoriness being obvious. There was no newspaper connection with the Lvov episode, but to double check—as well as to fill time—Charlie scrolled through the Sky and BBC news channels and drew another blank. Charlie’s hopes rose when there was no exercise escort accompanying the breakfast retrieval and they grew when the exercise delay extended to twenty minutes. It reached a full thirty before the two men arrived. Neither wore a waterproof.

  Charlie said: “We’re going to get wet.”

  The man in charge said: “The rain will have stopped by this afternoon,” and Charlie’s surprise at getting a response collided with the satisfaction of knowing there was going to be another interrogation.

  He had to proceed slower than a snail with hammer-toed flat feet as painful as his own, Charlie reminded himself, entering the familiar animal-murder room.

  * * *

  The three faced him in the same order as before but with the addition today of the replay machine, from which at once Charlie knew there’d been further Moscow contact. It was important for him to hear the new recording before making his intended pitch. The delay would enable him to detect attitude changes among those sitting in judgement upon him: to detect the slightest nuance to help what he wanted to achieve. Gerald Monsford sat Buddha-like with his hands familiarly cupping his expansive stomach, as if it required support. Charlie thought Jane Ambersom’s buttoned-to-the-neck Mao suit the perfect if outdated uniform for an indeterminately sexed torturer and at once stifled his wandering reflections. There had to be only one undivided concentration today and it didn’t include antagonism toward the deputy director-general, of whose personal dislike he’d already had too much evidence. It was Aubrey Smith who opened the session, which momentarily surprised Charlie.

  The man said: “There’ve been some developments.”

  Some developments, isolated Charlie. “What?”

  “Three Russians accredited to their embassy here burgled your flat last night.”

  Was there something here that he could twist to his advantage? wondered Charlie, hopefully. “Were they caught?”

  “They’re currently in custody,” said the Director-General. “They’ll claim diplomatic immunity, of course. But it’s a criminal offense and we’re going to use it to the maximum.”

  “What’s that mean?” pressed Charlie, curious at the unexpected leniency of the exchange.

  “You’re dead,” announced Monsford, hurrying to appear more visibly and audibly participating than he’d so far been. “The death certificate is dated six weeks ago.” He looked theatrically at his watch. “By now there’ll be a named headstone on an old grave in Moss Side, Manchester—where your false identity legend has you being christened—and the church burial records will have been registered accordingly.…”

  “That cover legend, unmarried bachelor clerk in a government pensions office, is fully in place—as you know it has been for years—and will easily satisfy the sort of media inquiries that’ll follow the Russians being named,” picked up Smith, seeing the other Director’s intrusion as confirmation of the man’s glory-seeking determination. With pointed clarification, he went on: “I’ve got the mystery already prepared—why should three accredited Russian diplomats burgle the no-longer-rented apartment of a very minor, now dead civil servant who has no surviving family and no known friends?”

  Charlie didn’t let his mild impatience at the double act cloud his recognition of danger. “I was identified—pictured on Moscow television—during the Lvov investigation.”

  “Not under the name in which your flat was rented and it won’t be your photograph we’ll leak to the media,” refused Smith.

  Charlie saw an opening but hesitated, deciding to wait. “Moscow—the FSB—won’t accept any of it.”

  “Of course they won’t,” agreed Monsford, choosing his intervening moment. “What they will accept is that you are in a protection program in which they don’t stand a chance of ever finding you and that the Vauxhall flat was nothing more than a major embarrassment trap that’s cost them three agents, two of them unidentified until today. To lose that many is bad enough and what they won’t know but which will terrify them is that we’ll expose their failed Lvov operation. We burned them with Lvov and now we’ve rubbed salt into very painfully sore wounds.”

  And the FSB had Natalia and Sasha, balanced Charlie. The fragile opening hadn’t widened, as he’d hoped. He’d wanted a lot more. There was still the unheard recording. Indicating the side table, he said: “There’s been contact from Natalia, hasn’t there?”

  “It’ll be the last, after the arrests,” predicted Jane Ambersom, finally entering the discussion.

  “Can I hear it?”

  In the time it took the woman to activate the machine, Charlie prepared himself, determined against the slightest reaction to Natalia’s voice. The initial seconds of traffic sounds were louder than before: an open street pod, not an enclosed kiosk, he guessed. When it finally came—to a stomach jump, despite Charlie’s expectation—Natalia’s voice was unexpectedly even, as if she’d prepared herself. “They’re examining my debriefing records. I don’t know how much they suspect. Remember, Charlie…” The cutoff was abrupt, either Natalia hurriedly putting down the receiver or having it snatched away and slammed back by someone else.

  Charlie had let his head drop, not forgetting his earlier determination against reaction but cultivating it now, although undecided whether seeming to seize this late some significance from what Natalia had said would appear too obviously staged. But could he realistically hope for anything more? Jane had rejoined the two directors and all three were staring expectantly at him as Charlie looked up. The moment he did, the overly aggressive woman said: “What’s the matter with you?” and despite her uncertain sexuality, Charlie would have willingly kissed her. Instead he shook his head, as if confused, continuing to string out a response.

  “What’s wrong?” repeated the woman.

  It had to look as if the realization was starting out half formed and needed to be coaxed from him. “She’s very frightened: more frightened than she ever was when we had to be careful in Moscow. But she believes they know about us. And if they do, she’s realized she’s caught up in the biggest espionage coup Russia has ever attempted: the total failure of the biggest espionage coup Russia ever attempted. They’ll be convinced—any intelligence organization would—that she knew I was going to wreck it.”

  Jane Ambersom turned and said something inaudible to the Director-General but to which Smith shook his head, not turning to her. The man said: “Is there something important in what you’ve just heard?”

  They weren’t dismissing him out of hand! Charlie said: “What she hopes I’ve understood from what I’ve just heard. She’s made an offer, her bargain, for her and Sasha to be got out.”

  Histrionically, Jane pushed herself back into her chair, snorting in customary derision. “Do you possibly imagine, in whatever dream world you’re living, that you’ll convince us that we’ve got to get your supposed wife and daughter out of Russia?”

  The totally fixated deputy director could have chosen what other part of her androgynous body sh
e wanted kissed or otherwise caressed, decided Charlie, in further gratitude. “You’ve established Natalia is not my supposed wife but my legally married wife?”

  “Yes,” confirmed Monsford, before either of the others.

  Concentrating upon the MI6 Director, Charlie went on: “And you’ve also established, from studying my assignment record, that I have never sabotaged anything involving this organization during my marriage or association with Natalia?”

  “Yes,” agreed Monsford, again.

  Continuing to address the MI6 chief, Charlie chanced the slightest of exaggerations: “And you know, from her length of service not just with the current FSB but the previous KGB that she’s not just a but the senior debriefer for Russian external intelligence. You’re intelligence experts, all three of you. But not even you can begin to imagine the number of defectors and spy offers and doubles and dissidents she’s interrogated: the answers she could provide to the mysteries and uncertainties over the past twenty years.”

  “Are you trying to persuade us that’s what she’s offering by her reference to your debriefing records?” asked the quiet-voiced Aubrey Smith, even more softly than usual.

  “I’m not trying to convince you,” said Charlie. “That’s what I’m telling you, as honestly as I’ve told you everything else.”

  “If she had all that to offer, why didn’t she come with you in the first place?” clumsily challenged Jane.

  I could have done a ventriloquist’s act with this woman, thought Charlie. “Because until now she hasn’t confronted the reality of a firing squad after undergoing interrogation that she knows would extend beyond her sort of debriefing into the KGB-perfected horror of psychiatric hospitals. While all the time knowing—because they’d remind her every day, as the most horrific part of that torture—that Sasha would be committed to the worst of Russian state orphanages.”

  * * *

  “The psychiatrist was right. The man’s mad,” declared Jane Ambersom. They’d once more moved from the formality of the interview after Charlie’s departure but she was unable to sit, instead pacing up and down in front of the dead fireplace around which the easy chairs were set.